


Bloody Money

by jerseydevious



Series: Pocket Change [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Father-City Relationship, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic CSA, bruce is hurt and he gets poked with a broom so that's basically h/c, check the AN for warnings, well it's kind of h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15530544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: One shiny penny, tails up.





	Bloody Money

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's me. I am a goblin from a land of goblins, so I wrote something that's really mean. If you have any triggers, please check the last author's note. I (a goblin) apologize.
> 
> So here's the thing. I realized that there's a super sketch line in _Batman: Gothic,_ and because I'm a goblin from the goblin trash can, I wrote something about it. All you need to know is that, in Gothic, Bruce's boarding school is shitty, and the headmaster had literally sold his soul to Satan and was 300ish years old and came back and tried to kill Bruce before Satan bitchslapped him into the fires of Hell. Comic by Grant Morrison. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

At eight years old, Bruce Wayne was a handful of pocket change; a quarter shorter than the other boys, a quiet demeanor that was a dime a dozen, but one thousand pennies for one thousand thoughts. He flitted between the rich corridors of Crane Preparatory Academy with the mice, charmed by his own silent world, content to stay there. His ability to be loud withered, and it bothered him not at all.

 

“Let him go,” Bruce said, and it was not a voice to be listened to. It was barely more than the gaggle of boys passing outside of the bathroom, barely more than the trees that scraped the windows of each dorm room at night.

 

The older boy, the one in seventh grade with the blonde hair, heard just the whisper and nothing beyond. He turned to Bruce baring mean teeth. “Scram, loser. We’re doing important business here.”  


The second boy, who Bruce knew went by Tuck, laughed and knocked Robert in the back with a knee. “Drink it up, piss boy. Jared’ll get rid of your fan over there.”

 

The blonde boy—Jared—cracked his knuckles and lurched around Robert. Robert, short and sickly thin, made a perfectly pathetic picture, slumped in front of a urinal with his carrot hair hanging limp and miserable.

 

Bruce didn’t know how to fight. He wasn’t very athletic, it was true, but mostly he didn’t see the point. He had never fought with anyone, and he’d gotten along just fine for eight whole years, so clearly he was doing something correctly. But Jared had a mean twist to his ugly face, and had at the very least a hundred pounds on him, not to mention perhaps a foot of height, so Bruce’s eight year streak of luck would have to be broken. He screwed his eyes shut, clenched his fists, and lashed out with his sharp little elbows.

 

One of those one thousand pennies was about to land heads up: he caught rough khaki, and Jared went down with a howl, cupping his groin.

 

Bruce looked down at his hands, wondering briefly what power he had discovered, and then shook out of it when Tuck roared. Robert saw his opportunity, and scrambled away, ducking under the urinals so Tuck couldn’t grab him. They barreled down the hallway, half-fell down the stairs, and didn’t stop until they were back in their shared room, breathing like small, awkward racehorses.

 

“Thank you!” Robert said. It was _intended_ to be said, at least—in reality, it was more of a breathy wheeze. Robert also had asthma.

 

“A teacher should—” Bruce stopped to gasp a quick breath, because he might not have had asthma, but he still wasn’t very athletic, “—been there.”

 

“A teacher wouldn’t do anything!” Robert said, flopping on the floor. He dug a puke green inhaler out of his pocket, shook it, and sucked in. “They _wouldn’t!_ We’re in _hell!”_  


“Don’t say that,” Bruce said.

 

Robert crossed his arms over his head. “My parents hate me. Yours do, too. That’s why we’re here.”  


“Don’t say that,” Bruce repeated, but this time it was weaker. Robert had skirted the edge of Bruce’s hidden fear that his parents had sent him to Crane Prep to get him out of the way—they were such busy people. He had tested it, like a scientist; he had asked if he could take the things they knew he loved most, like his Green Lantern poster. It would be almost like he was uprooting from his home entirely. _Yes,_ his mother had said. _Of course. You can take anything you want, sweetheart._

 

In the hall, there was a shout, then a great crash.

 

“Get under the bed,” Bruce said, quickly.

 

Robert didn’t have to be told twice—he was barely under his bed when the door swung open so hard it slammed against Robert’s dresser, chipping the wood.

 

“You little _snot,”_ Tuck snarled, jabbing a finger at Bruce. “You’re going to pay!”  
  
  


“I just wanted him to leave me alone,” Bruce said. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

 

“Yeah? Is that it?” Tuck promised, stalking forward. “I’m gonna hurt _you_ real bad.”  
  
  


Bruce curled back against the bed. He’d been hit before. Crane Prep was a place that prided itself on tradition, basked in its history like a lizard in the summer sun, and tradition was to wake the youngest kids up with buckets of water and chase them down the halls in the dead of night. Bruce had been hit before, but he found he didn’t much enjoy it.

 

Tuck grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed his face against the wooden edge of the bed—stars and flashes and fireworks flitted across Bruce’s eyes. The room tilted, twisted. At some point, Bruce got his hands pressed against his face, like if he pressed hard enough the pain couldn’t go anywhere else.

 

“And what is this? Green Lantern? You like Green Lantern, pipsqueak?”

 

“Don’t touch it,” Bruce mumbled. But he couldn’t see. He couldn’t stop it.

 

Tuck laughed. It was a cruel, mocking laugh—and what was it, that made mean people love to laugh?

 

Paper shredded. One half of the poster drifted over Bruce, and it shook as the boy underneath sobbed breathy little sobs.

 

“Remember, pipsqueak—you fell down the stairs,” Tuck said, and he snorted one more laugh, and marched away. He didn’t have to pick out which boards were to loud to step on. It didn’t matter who heard him. Maybe that was what Bruce hated in people—the loudness. The noise. There were ways in which a body could be loud; thunderous steps, laughing, shoulders thrown wide to bump into anything they pleased. A loud body was careless.

 

Robert rushed forward to shut the door. “I’m really sorry. I mean, about your poster. You didn’t have to try to help me.”

 

“I did,” Bruce said, not looking up.

 

“Sucks, though. It was a neat poster.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“You could always get a new one—gee, I mean, your parents...”

 

“Can we go to sleep, Robert.”

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. G’night.”  


-

 

“—Bruce? Aw, jeeze, you must’ve been slammed last night.”

 

Something jabbed him in the side. Bruce grabbed it on reflex, twisting, and flung it—dimly, he realized it was a broom handle. It clattered against the far wall uselessly.

 

“Good evening,” Dick said. “You called me yesterday about a case. I didn’t hear from you for, uh, most of today, so I just opted to show up around when the show’s getting ready to start, and, well.”

 

Bruce leaned back, rolling sore and aching shoulders. Something in his back shifted, and his hip popped loud enough for Dick to wince at it.

 

“Good morning,” Bruce muttered, scrubbing his jaw.

 

Dick moved towards the counter. “Coffee?”

 

“I can get it,” Bruce grunted, pushing himself out of his chair. His hip creaked unpleasantly, like an old floorboard, and he sat back in his chair with a huff.

 

Dick jabbed a finger at him. “Sit your bat-knickers back down. Coming right up, the Dick Grayson Pick-Me-Up Special. Anyway, did I tell you about the guy I found in a shopping cart the other day? He was just rolling right through Shockoe Bottom, without a care in the world. Right in the middle of the bike lane, even! And what’s weird is that he had…”

 

“Bruce? Earth to Bruce, hello?”

 

Bruce jolted, blinking. Same room. No drastic difference in light. He’d dozed off. “Hnh.”

 

Dick chuckled. “Maybe you should just go upstairs and hibernate for a bit. Trust me, Gotham’s safe between me and Tim and the Birds. We’re fine.”

 

“There’s a case,” Bruce rasped. “Where’s that…”

 

Dick dropped a mug on the table in front of him. “There you go.”

 

Bruce stared down at the drink disbelievingly. “Dick.”

 

Dick crossed his arms. “Bruce.”

 

“You put whipped cream on this,” Bruce said.

 

“Yeah-huh.”

 

“There’s sprinkles.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“You put the chocolate chips in the… shape of a smiley face.”

 

“No doubt about it.”  
  


Bruce sighed. “What else is in here.”

 

Dick peered at the counter. “Uh, about a tablespoon of sugar, some vanilla, lots of cream. And here’s the kicker: chocolate syrup for _days.”_

 

Bruce took the draw Dick offered and stabbed it into the whipped cream, taking an experimental sip. He left Dick hanging for a moment, swirling the mug experimentally. “I raised a genius,” he said, finally.

 

“Hell yeah, you did,” Dick said, clapping Bruce’s shoulder. “Let me make you my Good Morning, Life Sucks oatmeal. It’s chocolate and banana.”

 

“Truly the smartest man on the planet.”

 

Dick hopped over to the cabinets, pulling down a couple boxes of emergency oatmeal they kept for when Alfred wasn’t home. “If Lex Luthor had access to my genius, B, the League couldn’t do anything against him. He’d defeat you all with sugary goodness.”

 

Bruce smiled to himself, letting the drink slowly wake up his senses. By the time Dick dropped a bowl of chocolate oatmeal in front of him, he was feeling a quarter alive. Maybe a dime.

 

“Thank you,” Bruce said.

 

“Not a problem,” Dick answered. He slipped into the seat closest to Bruce, spooning some oatmeal into his mouth. “Oof, I’ve done it again. Pure culinary brilliance.”

 

“Mm,” Bruce said, rubbing a napkin over his mouth. “About that case.”

 

Dick perked up, brows raised in question. His teeth clicked against the spoon.

 

“It’s yours,” Bruce said. “If you have the time.”

 

“Busy?” Dick asked.

 

“A bit.”

 

“Figures. One pedophile that went into thin air, two possibly connected murders,” Dick paused to swallow, “and whatever the hell’s been going on with the League. I mean, Clark told me you were inside a giant space worm?”  
  


“Only for twelve hours.”  
  


“That’s disgusting,” Dick said. “Did you have to cut your way out? Because, y’know, that’d be pretty awesome.”

 

Bruce shook his head. “I… induced vomiting.”

 

“Eugh, I’m sitting a table with a leaving piece of space worm vomit,” Dick said. “How’s it feel to be regurgitation, Batman?”

 

“Incredible.”

 

Dick sipped his water. “So, tell me about this case.”  
  


“Dick. It’s… not a good case,” Bruce warned.

 

Dick leaned back in his chair, rocking it back and forth. Bruce swatted his knee in an attempted reprimand, but Dick ignored it, because Dick thought himself too grown to listen. Stubborn boy. “I’ve seen ugly. I can handle it.”

 

“Mass shooter disappeared before facing trial,” Bruce said, flatly. “I need you to find him.”

 

“Consider it done,” Dick said.

 

Bruce scooped up the last bit of oatmeal. “Thank you, for this.”

 

Dick eyed him. “You still look half dead, who would I be if I left all the work to you while ‘Haven’s as crystal clear as a sunny day? And, Bruce, no offense, but _man,_ you reek. I think Killer Croc smells better than you right now.”

 

“Very funny.”

 

Dick threw up his hands. “I’m just saying, clearly you didn’t wash those space worm digestive juices off as good as you think you did. Maybe you should take a shower. A couple showers.”

 

Bruce pushed himself out of the chair—falling asleep at the table had tied already sore muscles into knots, and he had to smother a wince. “I need to head downstairs.”

 

“Oh, no,” Dick said. “See, ribbing you about the shower was supposed to have the double effect of getting you to go upstairs, where you can sleep in a real bed, like a real bat-boy, Pinocchio.”

 

“I just slept, Dick,” Bruce said. “I have work to do.”

 

“I couldn’t wake you up with a half a can of whip cream,” Dick said. “And you _love_ whip cream. Don’t make that face, don’t deny it. You’d eat whip cream by the can if you thought no one would judge you.”

 

Bruce sighed. “Are you sure you and Tim will be fine?”

 

“Positive. Get out of my face, you smell like a dumpster.”

 

“I’ll be down no later than twelve.”

 

“Get out of here!”

 

Bruce turned, smiling to himself. The smile faded as Dick’s presence did, and an old weight settled firmly between his shoulders. Bruce carried it to the bed, and he rested.

 

-

 

Crane Prep was a study in opulence. A massive plain of short-cropped grass separated it from the street, where boys in pressed uniforms wandered like a scene from an idyllic brochure; far in the distance loomed the school itself. High, towering spires zippered to the ground by gray stone, windows in massive pointed arches like an ancient castle. Scholarships were rarely afforded. Bruce would later learn that his parents had paid fifty thousand dollars to send him, and he never even made it through a full year.

 

English that day would be uneventful, Arithmetic similarly so. The calm before the storm was a rare commodity, in the kind of life Bruce Wayne would grow into—the feeling of a lazy day, the warmth of the sun over the world, oppressive and slow, would rot away. The rot would begin here.

 

Dr. Martin’s classroom was stacked with books along the shelves, row after row of textbook and atlas and encyclopedia. The mahogany desks and tables were covered by old gray dust, artifacts of Dr. Martin’s long tenure. Dr. Martin spent most classes at the front, in a bitter-colored sweater stretched over his paunch, and he’d stroll down the aisles while the students recorded notes. It was a lecture class, a note class.

 

He knew the moment he slipped up. Bruce had gotten distracted. He had gotten lazy. He had pulled a careless arm across the his head _—mistake, mistake—_ and then Dr. Martin’s arm had darted out and caught Bruce’s bony white wrist.

 

Dr. Martin’s eyes flicked slowly over him, landing on the bruise. “See me after class,” he said.

 

Bruce waited in his chair for the rest of class. He didn’t take any notes, because his hand was shaking too badly to write, and he didn’t look up, in case his hair shifted and revealed the offending mark. He’d never been called to stay after class before, but he’d seen a lot of people leaving Dr. Martin’s classroom with tears running down their cheeks.

 

“Bruce,” Dr. Martin called, over the clamor of rushing students.“Come into my office, please.”

 

Bruce ducked his head, resisted the urge to pull at his hair, and tucked his books into his bag very carefully.

 

“You can leave that there,” Dr. Martin said. “We shouldn’t be long. I just want to talk about that goose egg on your face, lad.”  
  


“Yes, sir,” Bruce said, and he dropped his bag.

 

Dr. Martin’s office was as dusty as the classroom—warm yellow sunlight cut in the room, illuminating drifting particles in the air. Dr. Martin gestured at him to sit on the couch, a dark green plaid one that smelled like salt and mildew. Bruce perched himself on the edge.

 

Dr. Martin shuffled in after him, shifting his green sweater vest. He shut the door slowly, and then he locked it with a twist of his gold key. At eight years old, Bruce Wayne didn’t realize that no one having a concerned conversation with a child would lock the door.

 

“Now, lad,” Dr. Martin said. “I’d like you to do a favor for me.”

 

At eight years old, Bruce Wayne was a handful of pocket change; a quarter shorter than the other boys, a quiet demeanor that was a dime a dozen, and one shiny penny, tails up.

 

-

 

“I don’t remember the last time I saw a penny,” Tim said, standing back up. His suit was rumpled and his tie crooked from crawling beneath the table, but he had more interest in studying the penny than he did fixing himself.

 

Bruce huffed. “Your tie, Tim.”

 

“That’s also the worst thing I’ve ever said, by the way,” Tim continued. “That was terrible. Who do you think dropped this?”

 

“Dick,” Bruce said, forcing Tim’s arms to his sides. He adjusted the tie and pulled Tim’s suit taut, pausing sometimes to pick off a piece of lint.

 

“It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of these,” Tim said. “I forgot how to act. Who’s Tim Wayne, again, even?”

 

“Respectable but boring,” Bruce said. “Don’t be interesting, Tim.”  
  


“Got it,” Tim said. “Nothing interesting. I drink milk, my favorite cheese is American, and I ask everyone if they’ve watched _The Big Bang Theory.”_

 

“I have to greet a few people first,” Bruce said, squeezing Tim’s shoulder, “but I’ll find you. We’ll leave early.”

 

Tim grinned. “Could leave earlier if we went through the window.”

 

Bruce huffed—he meant it to be a laugh, but he never seemed to have the energy for them. “Well. Windows are just… high doors.”

 

“Exactly,” Tim said. He bumped Bruce’s arm with an elbow, winked, and disappeared into the throng of suits and ties and evening gowns.

 

Bruce Wayne hadn’t made an appearance in some time; Dick was right, Gotham had kept him fairly busy recently, and if he were being honest with himself, he’d been intentionally putting off making a public visit for months. There were plenty of people he needed to solidify relationships with, tonight—charity backers and politicians and their ilk—but he had little patience for it. By the time he got around to Mr. and Mrs. Livingfield, his patience had long since worn thin.

 

“Chester!” Bruce said, sticking out a hand. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been too long!”

 

Behind his tacked-up smile, Bruce recoiled at Chester’s touch. Chester Livingfield was far from the worst man Bruce had ever known; he was a banal evil, a dealer of gossip. Distasteful, sure, but truthfully just another loud voice in a sea of loud voices. A copperhead in a pit of vipers.  
  
  
  
“Bruce!” Chester said, pumping Bruce’s hand once, and dropping it. “Good to see you, good to see you. You know, that boy of yours passed by not five minutes ago.”

 

“Oh, Tim?” Bruce said pleasantly.  
  


Chester laughed, patting his stomach. “Even you forget! How many boys do you have, eleven?”  
  


“Feels like it,” Bruce said. “Rambunctious kids.”

 

“I understand that,” Chester said. “I have a boy of my own, real troublemaker. I wouldn’t mind if he met with your youngest, you know. Making connections and all that.”  
  
  
  
“Of course,” Bruce said. He knew that, in absence of being able to _literally_ eviscerate the youngest Livingfield, Damian would settle for his barbed tongue, and do so verbally. The Livingfields would never survive his youngest. Bruce tried very hard not to feel proud about that.

 

Conversations were a delicate balance. He couldn’t keep talking long enough to actually convince Chester that he would arrange for Livingfield Junior and Damian to meet, but he needed to maintain an amicable relationship—Chester’s fat mouth brought him more information about the rot crawling in Gotham’s ivory tower than anyone else.

 

“Call me, and we’ll arrange it,” Bruce said. He would ignore the call, and Chester would harrumph and forget about the whole thing. Bruce checked his watch and feigned surprise. “Oh, Christ. Already nearly seven. I need to head out and pick up my little brat.”

 

Chester laughed. Always with the laughing. “Don’t you have a butler for that, Bruce?”

 

“Damian’s been very excited to show me his new painting,” Bruce said. “He’s an excellent artist. Brilliant. Must’ve been his mother’s influence, right?”

 

Chester chortled. “Of course! Run off, then,” he said, flapping his hands. “Run off! I’ll spread the word of where you went. But, Bruce, if you don’t start getting out of that house, someone’s going to think you’ve died in it!”  
  


Bruce smiled thinly. “Of course. If you would excuse me,” he said, and turned away, trying to twist the stiffness in his muscles into something softer, like Bruce Wayne ought to be. He was stopped by a passing server, and he snatched a flute of champagne and took a delicate sip.

 

Chester was still talking, unaware Bruce was still listening. “You know the real reason he keeps those little monsters around,” Chester said, leaning over to his wife. “He keeps them so he can have his way with them, the—”

 

At somewhere between forty three thousand years old and forty three years old, Bruce Wayne was a handful of pocket change; two quarters bigger, two dimes faster, and down to his last penny of self-control.

 

There wasn’t time, between the moment the champagne glass was in Bruce’s hand, and the moment it was shattered on the floor, replaced with Chester’s gaudy tie. “What,” he growled, “did you just say.”  
  
  
  
“It was—it was nothing! It wasn’t—anything at all—”  
  


“Liar,” Bruce spat. His blood roared in his ears, but when the foamy lip of the wave crashed on him he wasn’t angry—there was sunlight cutting into the room, dust drifting into the bright planes of it and getting lost in the heat—the couch, the voice, creeping forward—

 

And at the raw center of it, beyond the wrinkled hands, beyond the noise, beyond the sound of the zipper, the insult. The greatest insult. As a child he had believed in heroes more than anyone. He’d steal the paper from his father to read stories about the great Green Lantern, he watched episodes of the Gray Ghost absolutely enraptured. It was easy to believe that the world was safe when he lived in a world made plush by inheritance, instead of one turned toxic by it—it was easy to believe that Green Lantern always showed up to save the day when it was never your day that needed saving. He had believed in heroes more than anyone, and no hero came for him.

 

“Bruce? Bruce!”

 

Bruce dropped Chester, who fell to the ground, rubbing his throat. Someone was tugging on his arm. His ears were ringing.

 

“Thank God,” Tim said. “Come on, Bruce, let’s go.”

 

“Is Damian alright,” Bruce said. His mouth was stuffed with cotton. Someone was still tugging on his arm.

 

“Damian? Why are you—he’s fine,” Tim said. “We’ve gotta go.”

 

Tim. Tim was pulling on his suit. Bruce jerked his arm away, something like fear burbling up his throat.

 

He blinked, and he was outside—it smelled like summer rain, warm and wet. There were words floating around him, but they had no order, no structure, no purpose but to flit about like mosquitos.

 

“Hey, Dick,” Tim said. “We’re on our way back. Uh, Bruce—I can’t tell if he’s drunk or just having an existential crisis. Nearly punched Chester Livingfield. No, Dick, I’m not going back in there and finishing the job—I know he’s a dick! That’s still assault! Bruce, can you please get in the car?”

 

Hands—there were hands on him—they were touching him—

 

“Oh,” Tim groaned—beneath him. “Oh, that was such a stupid idea. Why did I do that.”

 

Bruce stumbled back. Tim had grabbed his elbow, trying to push him into the passenger’s side, and he’d grabbed Tim and pinned him against the car.

 

Tim rolled his wrist. “Ouch,” he said. He bent down and picked up the phone. “Sorry, Dick. I touched him, he freaked. Oh my _God,_ I _know_ it was stupid. Normally, I would’ve used the broom! Except I don’t have one, and he’s not asleep! Okay. Okay. We’re on our way back, tell Alfred.”

 

Tim hung up the phone and dropped it into his pocket. “Bruce?” he asked.

 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce rumbled. “Let me.”

 

He took Tim’s wrist and pulled it down, checking it over.

 

“I’ll be fine,” Tim said. “It’s you I’m worried about. You don’t usually freak out like this.”

 

Bruce was silent.

 

“It’s the case, right?” Tim said. “It has to be.”

 

“I’ve been… looking for this man,” Bruce said, slowly. “For a long time.”

 

Tim nodded. “Okay. But… Bruce. You’re you. You’ve got no reason to be this stressed about it.”  
  
  


“I’m not,” Bruce said. “Livingfield. He… implied I hurt you. All of you.”

 

“Of course you do, you ate my ice cream last week,” Tim said.

 

Bruce sighed. “Tim.”

 

“I’m mad about the ice cream, okay!” Tim said. “You eating my double chocolate cake ice cream gave me deep-seated daddy issues, and you won’t even apologize.”

 

“It was very good.”

 

Tim glared. “Get in the car, you monster.”

 

-

 

“Your mother is waiting in the car,” Thomas said. “I won’t be but a minute.”

 

Thomas Wayne marched down the school’s hallway as if he were well aware he was three inches taller than even the security guard, and wanted all passerby to know that fact as well as he did. His shoulders were curled over like a cresting wave and his face looked like a thunderstorm. It was unusual to find someone like Thomas Wayne frowning, much less scowling, and the man very possibly couldn’t swat a fly without feeling guilty about that fly’s family, but no one here knew that.

 

Bruce was much shorter, and jogged to keep up, one hand fisted in his father’s suit leg as if he were trying to drag him backwards. “Dad,” he mumbled. “Dad, Dad, can we leave.”  
  
  


“A minute,” Thomas repeated. “I’m going to have a talk with this Mr. Winchester, son.”  
  
  


“Please,” Bruce said, and his voice fissured and cracked by the end of the first syllable. “Please. Please.”  
  
  


Thomas stopped, looking down at Bruce—his eyes crinkled in that way, the skin folded over the top, that made him look deeply sad. It took a lot of force, for his eyes to wrinkle like that. Thomas Wayne was a young man, too young to look like that.

 

“Sweetheart,” Thomas said, kneeling down. Bruce rubbed at his nose, and looked away.  
  
  


“Look at me,” Thomas said, softly.  
  
  


“I don’t, I don’t want to,” Bruce said. “I can’t. I’m, I’m not—”

 

_—safe. I am not safe._

 

“Then listen,” Thomas said. “We’ll leave as soon as I talk to Mr. Winchester, I promise. I promise, okay? I just need to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other student. Corporal punishment is wrong.”  
  
  


Bruce nodded, sullen. He had waited a month. He could wait two minutes more. “Oh, son,” Thomas breathed. “I’m so sorry—we shouldn’t have sent you here. It was a mistake. Your place is home, with us.”  
  
  


“I thought you wanted me out of the way,” Bruce mumbled.  
  
  


“Never,” Thomas said, vehemently. “Never, Bruce, we love you. We thought a boarding school would help you socialize more, son—you’re always so quiet. We get worried.”  
  
  


“Quiet,” Bruce whispered. “Quiet.”

 

“That’s right,” Thomas said, stroking his hair. “You were always so attached to us, me and your mother and Alfred. We didn’t know what else to do. We didn’t talk to enough people about this school, and you paid the price. I’m so sorry.”

 

Bruce leaned forward, pressing his cheek against his dad’s suit, letting his dad’s arms wrap him up. _Safe._ “I missed you.”

 

“I missed you, too, sweetheart,” Thomas said. “Just one second, is all.”

 

Bruce nodded, and then Thomas straightened, and disappeared behind the heavy wood door to Mr. Winchester’s office. Bruce sat on one of the chairs outside and waited.  
  
  


The meeting was longer than one second, and occasionally Bruce could hear snippets of an argument _—sneaking around my office—where did Robert Wellerman disappear to—_ but mostly it was senseless noise.

 

It occurred to Bruce, eventually, that he had never thrown away his Green Lantern poster. It had hung limply from his wall ever since it had been torn, and he didn’t want his father to see that Bruce had let someone ruin it. So he snuck back through the halls and into his mostly empty room, and pulled the poster off of the wall.

 

Bruce Wayne, at eight years old, had kept his faith with his dimes and his quarters, and it had grown so strong it burned a hole straight through the bottom of his pocket. Now his faith dribbled out behind him like a spool of bright white string. Green Lantern was never on his way; but his parents always were, and he was safe with them. He would always have his parents. He stuffed the poster in the trash.

 

There was a knock at the door. “Bruce? Son?”

 

“Hi, Dad,” Bruce said.

 

“I was thinking,” Thomas said. “We should celebrate you being home, where you belong. How do you feel about the movies?”

 

-

 

Bruce jolted awake, tasting buttery popcorn, salt, and blood—feeling hands roving over his hips, feeling something in his chest crack like lightning. There was someone above him, and in one smooth motion his fist was rocketing forward. It was caught by nimble hands, the motion redirected, and before he knew it he was on the ground and staring up at Cass’s smile. The shadows in the room seemed to lend themselves to her, finding home in her dark hair and at the corners of her teeth.

 

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said.

 

“Hi,” she said back. She settled on her knees, leaning over him. “You are scared.”

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

 

“Not good,” she said.

 

“I’m used to it,” he said. “Did you eat?”

 

“Yes. Babs.”

 

“Good,” Bruce said. He sat up, wincing as a long line of muscle pulled against a long line of bruises. “Can I see your hands?”

 

Cass presented her arms, the white bandages covering her whittled and scarred wrists. Bruce unravelled them slowly, and peered at the deep scores hidden underneath from Cass’s jagged nails. “Have you been keeping your nails filed?”

 

She held them out for him to see. He cupped her hands and looked carefully at her nails, running a thumb along the edges. Each were perfectly smooth and shaped like tiny half-moons. He had no doubt Barbara had done it.

 

“Do we need to keep wrapping them?”

 

Cass shrugged.

 

“I think we can try it without,” Bruce said. “But don’t scratch.”

 

“No scratch,” she promised. She looked up at him, sharp eyes catching his. “Hood looking for you.”  
  
  
  
Bruce sighed. “I knew he would be. I’ll handle it.”

 

“Upset.”

 

“Mm,” Bruce said. “I should think. Let’s get you to bed.”

 

“Still scared,” she said.

 

“Yes,” he said. “Always. I worry for all of you.”

 

Hands on his hips could be hands on theirs, the salt could be the taste of their blood—an alleyway could be their grave just as easily. A coffin could be carved of graffiti and brick the same way it could be of wood. Always there was the worry.

 

Cass pressed a hand to Bruce’s chest, and said, “I want… to stay.”

 

“You can stay,” he said. “We’ll go downstairs—”

 

“Here,” she said. “You are tired.”

 

Bruce blinked, and huffed a laugh to himself. “That obvious, hm.”

 

Cass smiled. “Yes.”

 

He stood, back popping, and climbed back beneath the covers. Cass followed him, in her sweatpants and t-shirt, laying her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed.

 

“When I was a kid,” Bruce began, softly, “I fell into a well on the grounds. Broke my arm. The pain wasn’t the scary thing—though it was pretty bad, back then—it was the bats. I was terrified of them.”

 

Cass’s fingers drifted up, and she began to drag them over his chest. She did that, sometimes. He wondered what she drew. “That… is why you chose.”

 

“Yes,” he said. “And no. Yes, because they scared me. No, because I wasn’t thinking about falling into the well when… I did it. It was… I was sitting in the study, bleeding out. I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do to make it… work. I had the training. I had the knowledge. But it wasn’t working.”

 

“How did you chose,” she said.

 

“Choose,” he corrected.  


“How did you choose,” she repeated.

 

“A bat crashed through my window,” he said. “It seems… childish, now.”

 

“Sign,” Cass said. “Very important. You were sign to me.”

 

“A sign,” he corrected.

 

“A sign,” she repeated.

 

He laid his head back against the pillow, some unnameable emotion slippering up his throat, along his vocal cords, a bird on a wire. All the while Cass lay as silent witness to his bobbing throat, his wrinkled eyes.

 

“Trouble sleeping, lately,” he said. It was supposed to be a question.

 

“Yes,” she said.

 

“You know what used to help Dick, when he was younger,” Bruce said. “Singing. Like a bird.”

 

“I like birds,” Cass mumbled.

 

“I see trees of green, red roses too,” Bruce rumbled. “I see them bloom, for me and you…”

 

Eventually her eyes drifted mostly shut, a pleased little expression over her face. He tucked her hair behind her ear with her thumb.

 

“I chose because,” Bruce said, finally, “it would scare them away. The way lions have manes to make themselves look bigger.”

 

“Like… a father,” Cass said. Here she nuzzled her face against him, rolling into him as if she meant to sleep—but his eyes were wide and his skin was numb with the memory of his father walking him out of boarding school with his suit jacket wrapped around Bruce’s shoulders. Bruce had thought it felt a lot like a cape.

 

-

 

_A different kind of hero,_ he had thought, sitting there on his knees, flush with the cobblestone. On his knees. There were bruises over his kneecaps getting darker all the time. Night was falling and the world was getting darker all the time.

 

The blood spilled hot and red and soaked his pants and clung to his skin, his knuckles dusted the surface of it where they hung by his sides—he could hear nothing but the running and the painting and the rapport of the gun and that one last hellish scream. Screams. He hadn’t been listening—he had been staring up the barrel. Staring up the barrel, and beneath his heart and down near his stomach, walking forward on a slit of razor wire and learning that breathing was an action taken by the profoundly unlucky.

 

His eyes stuck on the spot at the center, each cooling body cupping a peripheral—coming just at the edge. But the blood invaded even the space he had made, the only place he could look without the fireworks of the bullet going through his mother’s forehead—the ring like a halo—spatter—dilated eyes—nothing but pearls and the red hot concrete—getting darker all the time.

 

Someone was there and someone was speaking, but he was not focusing and he was not listening. Light played on warm blood in a special way. Light over water flickered, like candlefire, but light over blood spooled as if someone had spun it from oil. Blood sliding down the storm drains, now, blood in the nooks of the alley, and he was never getting up. He still tasted salt and butter. Zorro wouldn’t have let it happen. Green Lantern shouldn’t have.

 

_A different kind of hero,_ he thought, and someone was grabbing him roughly by the arms and saying, “Christ, kid, stop staring at it.” He was handed off to another person and now Bruce was pulled further away, further from the bloody center and here was where he screamed—he saw his father’s limbs spread wide like they were when he made snow angels, he saw the bullet hole in the jacket he had worn that afternoon as a cape, he saw his mother’s hips turned as if she were lying on her side asleep and then her arms open to the sky—take her now, don’t ever take her—

 

He pushed himself off the ground with his heels and bit the hand of the man holding him—hands on his hips, hands on his hips, on his knees again, pinned down and held for ransom. He didn’t stop screaming or kicking until they wrestled him like an rabid dog into a squad car, and they kept trying to speak to him, but he was not focusing and he was not listening. There was blood on his hands, blood on his legs, dribbling down him.

 

A harsh seat. They were still talking. They touched him and then he screamed and they flitted away, like moths attracted to light—he had turned out the light. Getting darker all the time.

 

“Alfred,” he managed to choke out. “I want Alfred.”

 

Alfred had his flat cap on, when he arrived, eyes wild and something like horror on his face. He was not focusing. Bruce couldn’t tell. It hurt to look at, because Alfred’s face didn’t much lend itself to expression. He was not focusing. Alfred took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around Bruce’s shoulders, and Bruce pulled it tight around himself, like a cape.

 

_A different kind of hero,_ he thought.

 

-

 

“Your son doesn’t need a hero, Mr. Wayne,” principal Mr. Vantucker said. “I assure you, Damian is very safe here.”

 

“Children will _always_ need protectors,” Bruce snarled. “I’m his father. I need more than assurances.”

 

Mr. Vantucker re-settled his glasses on his nose, looking baffled. “Mr. Wayne—”

 

“Someone called my son a terrorist,” Bruce said, “and nothing was done about it.”

 

“I’m sure—”

 

“Nothing was done,” Bruce repeated. “I want that teacher fired.”

 

Mr. Vantucker spluttered. “Excuse me? Dr. Warren is, frankly, more qualified than I am! His record is outstanding, it—”

 

“Do I look like someone who gives a damn.”

 

Mr. Vantucker swallowed. “Surely we could smooth this over. Surely! We could have the students suspended.”

 

“You won’t get points from me for doing what you should have already done,” Bruce said. He stopped to take in a deep breath, relishing Vantucker’s fear—just scared of losing the potential for big ticket donations, most likely. But fear all the same. _Fear into the hearts of criminals._ “Warren knew about the harassment. My son went to the teacher with it. I want him fired for ignoring the pleas of a student because of his race.”

 

“I’m sure it had nothing to do with all that,” Vantucker said, nervously. “It—Damian is not the most well-behaved boy, let’s face it. Dr. Warren likely just did not give it the thought—”

 

“So he would let a _child_ suffer because he couldn’t be bothered to make sure his claims were true before making a false assumption,” Bruce said, scathingly. “Mr. Vantucker, you run an institution for children. Failing to come to the aid of one is the highest possible offense.”

 

“I think you’re overreacting, Mr. Wayne, I truly do,” Vantucker said. “If Damian were simply more approachable—”

 

Bruce was standing before he knew it with his hands gripping the edge of Vantucker’s desk, the white-knuckled hold the only thing keeping him from punching Vantucker across his smarmy teeth. “We withdraw,” Bruce hissed.

 

He stopped at the door, one hand on the doorframe. “And my son is a fucking _joy,”_ Bruce said. He got one beautiful glimpse of Vantucker’s aghast, pallid face, and then he slammed the heavy wood door behind him.

 

Damian was sitting in the chair by the door, arms crossed, expression surly. “We withdraw?” he asked.

 

Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose. He should’ve assumed Damian would listen in—maybe he wouldn’t have lost his temper, had he been thinking. He’d spent a long time trying to master his temper, an age and a half spent keeping it ruthlessly chained, divided into controlled blazes like candles. An age and a half wasted in a thirty minute conversation.

 

“I’m not letting you stay here,” Bruce said. “It’s not safe.”

 

“Seems like _you_ wanted to withdraw,” Damian huffed, but he picked up his pack and swung it over his shoulder anyway.

 

“I’m not paying racists fifty thousand a year to teach you to hate yourself,” Bruce snapped.

 

“Because I am a fucking joy,” Damian parrotted.

 

Bruce stopped, looking down at his youngest. Damian greeted him with a smirk. “What did I tell you about language.”

 

“You just said that!” Damian said. “I was repeating _you,_ Father. I refuse to pay Pennyworth another cent.”

 

“Do as I say, not as I do,” Bruce said. “And for that you’ll be paying him five hundred.”

 

Bruce pushed the big door open, letting in a gust of cold air, letting Damian by. He noticed Damian’s shiver, and once he was outside, he swung his coat off and took Damian’s pack, dropping the coat over his shoulders.

 

“Where will I attend now,” Damian asked. It lacked the inflection of a question, something Bruce thought Damian might have gotten from him. He’d noticed traits of his, scattered across his children—the way Dick rubbed his jaw, the way Tim glared at people. It made something warm and hot burn in his chest to see. When it came to matters of the heart everything seemed to smolder.

 

“We can homeschool you,” Bruce said. “I don’t trust a school with you.”

 

“Because I’m not the most well-behaved of students,” Damian said.

 

“Absolutely not,” Bruce said. “Because you’re a fucking joy, Damian, and I don’t want anyone touching that.”

 

Damian appraised him, one eyebrow raised—moments like these, he was an adult in the shoes of a child. “Don’t curse, Father. You sound ridiculous.”

 

Bruce swiped a hand over his face, chuckling in a dry, soft way. “Not cool enough to hang with the kids, am I.”

 

“Not nearly,” Damian said, sliding into the passenger’s seat. “Where is Pennyworth?”

 

“Well,” Bruce said. “I may have sent him to get curry. I assume you’re hungry.”

 

Damian grinned. His son’s face made a grin a sharp and precious thing. “You have your moments, Father.”

 

“Nonsense,” Bruce said, buckling his seatbelt. “I have a moment all the time. I’m fantastic.”

 

“I will inform you when you are doing well, and not a moment before,” Damian said haughtily. “Do not _presume,_ Father.”

 

What a child.

 

As he drove, he studied his son out of the corner of his eye. He had a smile on his face—he looked healthy, happy, at ease in a way Damian was rarely at ease. He looked safe. It could be faked. Bruce’s children were well-practiced liars, because he had taught them to lie himself; Damian had needed no teaching in the art of deception, however. He had already learned from the best.

 

“If anyone at that school,” Bruce began—he stopped to clear his throat. “If anyone at that school hurt you, please… please tell me, Damian. That’s not something you should be alone for.”

 

Damian was quiet, but his face shifted slowly into a scowl. “You don’t like schools, do you.”

 

“No.”

 

“Pennyworth told me a story about your old principal,” Damian said. “The story of the one who sold his soul to Satan, and then came back and tried to kill you.”

 

“It was… not pleasant,” Bruce said.

 

“I am assuming a school run by Satan is not a fun one,” Damian said. His green eyes were curious.

 

“It’s… not pleasant,” Bruce repeated. “Damian, I was asking about you.”

 

“I am fine,” Damian said. “Pennyworth is delivering us curry and you’re weak enough to be talked into ice cream after patrol. I look towards the future with rapt delight.”

 

Bruce couldn’t help it—something in him snapped, and he laughed in the loud, boisterous way that reminded him of his own father.

 

“God,” Bruce said. “All you children think about is food. Damn kids.”

 

“Damn fathers,” Damian said, with another sharp, precious grin.

 

-

 

At eight years old, Bruce Wayne was a handful of pocket change; a quarter shorter than the other boys, a quiet demeanor that was a dime a dozen, and one shiny penny, heads or tails.

 

Bruce watched his father and his mother be lowered into the ground with a sort of blank, empty look—he could’ve been watching paint dry, for all he appeared. He stared down the middle, at the patch of grass between the two plots, and he let Alfred’s hand on his shoulder and the pattering of rain against the umbrella ground him.

 

Someone other than Alfred reached out for him, once, and he darted quick as a silverfish behind Alfred. Later, he’d learn it was the reason his aunt, Agatha, refused to take him in. A girl with the brightest hair he’d ever seen tried to speak to him, but he couldn’t stop staring at her hair, the slice of it down her neck, and he couldn’t stop thinking of the way light reflected on blood—

 

He hated the color red. Decades later, he would still hate the color red, but Superman was quick to change his opinion on it.

 

Everyone left, some way or another. He wasn’t sure how. He thought Alfred might have sent them away, because there was a vague swirl in his memory of Alfred suit rumpled between the shoulders where he had one hand on the doorknob and the other held to his side, looking out of the door as if someone was speaking to him. He remembered it like an oil painting on glass, the color sluicing down to pool at his feet like all that red—dinner that night was soup and sandwiches, but neither of them ate very much.

 

He waited to sneak out after Alfred was asleep, after the storm had moved just far enough away that the thunder and lightning cracked but there was no rain. He took an old candle tray off of the shelf—his mother would’ve swatted his hand and told him it was a valuable antique, and the thought made Bruce swallow back tears—and he burnt his thumb lighting it with one of Alfred’s lighters.

 

Outside, he sat in front of the graves, knees sinking into the mud, and laid the candle tray on the ground. He raised his right hand. Later, he would tell a boy so similar to himself it hurt that he swore to spend his life warring on all criminals, but it was another well-practiced lie. War on all criminals sounded mature. War on all criminals sounded like something out of the mouth of a mayor or a district attorney, war on all criminals sounded adult-like, grown-up, sounded like he was more than an eight year old crying in the rain on the precipice of something that defied understanding—

 

What he really said was, _I swear I’ll protect them next time. I’ll be a different kind of hero. I’ll protect them all._

 

-

 

The first thing most travel blogs or magazines would say was that Gotham was ugly. Look out your window, and you’ll find knotted barbed wire and rotting wood fences, spray paint and glass beer bottles from two decades ago. Look out your door and you will see the broken streetlights, the asphalt patches in cobblestone roads. Look down and you will see the brick sidewalk, ruptured where a tree planted for aesthetic had forced its roots beneath. Listen and you will hear the sirens, and the yelling, and the sirens, and the horns, and the sirens, and the music roaring from cars down the street. The people at the top of Gotham City had spent so long pushing the weight further and further down that even the city itself was cracked, dirty, bloody.

 

But even with the weight of the sky, Gotham found a way to thrive; no one out there was braver than a person born to East End. No one out there had the gall to spit in Scarecrow’s face and say, “Move it, I’ve got ice cream in here,” except the woman in sandals he’d seen last week, carrying her groceries home. Jonathan Crane had faltered for a moment, on the very edge of a realization that defied his understanding. Beneath his cowl, Batman smiled. Gotham found a way to thrive. They called her ugly, and she glittered anyway.

 

“She’s beautiful,” Bruce murmured, and it sounded something like pride.

 

“I don’t even _want_ to know what you’re thinking about.”

 

“Jason,” Bruce said. He patted the stretch of parapet next to him. “Sit.”

 

He’d expected something to be thrown at him—a brick, maybe, or a boot. A piece of trash. But Jason sat down beside him, leaving a good six inches between his thigh and Bruce’s. Jason slipped off the helmet. His domino looked like blood slashed over his eyes.

 

“Thinkin’ about Catwoman?” Jason asked. His voice was thick. He was beating around the bush.

 

Bruce shook his head. “Selina is beautiful. But I was thinking about Gotham.”  


Jason snorted. “This gross city? It needs a power washer taken to every block.”

 

“Nn. Yes.”

 

“How’s that beautiful?” Jason asked.

 

It was the voice, that stopped him—he sounded so painfully earnest, so painfully curious, just like he had when he was younger. Jason’s laughter, his rapid-fire questions. The little notepad he kept on patrol, where he’d write down the facts he found most interesting. _How many natural lakes are there in Texas?_ Jason would ask. _I don’t know,_ Bruce would say. He would hide the atlas he was studying under a sheath of business papers. _There’s only one, Caddo Lake,_ Jason would respond, haughtily. Chest puffed out, smirking—that same chest in his arms, that same smirk frozen solid, the blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth and the sound of screaming bells—

 

Bruce shut his eyes. He was thankful for his cowl. “Say that again,” he rasped.

 

Jason shrugged. Bruce’s silence had made him defensive; Jason would react to the slightest hint of pressure. “I dunno. I don’t think Gotham’s that beautiful. Looks like a shithole to me.”

 

“It _is_ a shithole,” Bruce said. “It’s been a shithole for a very long time. But Gotham’s like a weed. Nothing keeps her down.”

 

Jason elbowed him. “Stop talking about this stupid city like you’re going to have sex with it,” he said, but his voice was light. “And don’t say ‘shit,’ that’s unbecoming of a proper gentleman.”

 

“Damian says I sound weird when I curse,” Bruce hummed.

 

“You do,” Jason said.

 

Bruce sighed.

 

They were quiet for a while, after that; the amicable feeling between them melted into something more tense as Jason drew up the courage to finally ask.

 

“Why’d you do it,” he said, finally, in a rush, as if he hadn’t fully talked himself into asking it at all. “I mean, why here, why now. After all this time.”

 

“Jason,” Bruce started. He stopped, because something didn’t feel right. “No. Jay-lad. I made you a promise.”

 

“I didn’t have a name,” Jason said. “I barely had a face. I was twelve, I couldn’t help you, and… it had happened years ago.”

 

“I made you a promise,” Bruce repeated.

 

“I remember,” Jason said, softly. “You… you don’t know how much that meant. No adult had ever done something like that for me before.”

 

“Failing to come to the aid of a child is the highest possible offense. It’s my job. As Batman and your father.”

 

Jason stiffened at that final word. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” he said. He slid the helmet back over his features. “This doesn’t bury the hatchet between us, old man. I’m not through with you.”

 

“Of course not,” Bruce said.

 

Jason’s boots crunched gravel, and then there was a _whuff,_ and he had vaulted over the back edge of the building.

 

Below a newspaper blew by in the breeze: Robert Willow incarcerated for sexual assault. The words winked up at him. For a long time, now, he’d understood something he hadn’t when he was a child; it wasn’t that Green Lantern hadn’t been paying attention. He just wasn’t fast enough.

 

-

 

“I think it’s _—hrk—_ childish,” Bruce gasped.

 

Alfred tied off the stitches, primly tearing open a packet of sterile swabs. “At this point, I am an expert in childishness, Master Bruce.”

 

“I mean… this,” Bruce mumbled. “Everything.”

 

“You do have a giant dinosaur.”

 

“Not that,” Bruce snapped. Alfred swabbed at the cut; the local was starting to wear off, and it stung a bit, around the edges of a haze. “Well. Maybe that.”

 

Alfred hummed. “Apt correction, sir.”

 

“I mean… this,” Bruce said, flopping one hand out expansively at the Cave. “Batman. This. It’s… childish.”

 

Alfred was silent. He was silent for quite some time, packing the wound in Bruce’s side. He even began to busy himself with cleaning up before he said anything at all.

 

The silence was heavy, so Bruce prodded it. “I created this… when I was little. Because I wanted someone always to be there. And I wanted them to never die. But I’m not fast enough, and someday I’ll die.”

 

Alfred nodded tersely, studying a plastic container from the medical cabinet intently. He seemed uncomfortable. “Having realizations, are we.”

 

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

 

“My, what a cryptic answer.”

 

“This… is just some kid’s dream,” Bruce said, hoarsely. “That’s it.”  


Alfred snapped the medical cabinet closed. “Children,” he said, still facing the gray steel, “have very delightful dreams. It might just be so that children see the world in a way that is unburdened by what we adults are poised to think. Where a child might see injustice, an adult might only see the status quo.”

 

Bruce coughed into his fist. A warm hand slid over his forehead, pushing back strands of hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead.  


“Fever,” Alfred sniffed. “No wonder you’re so talkative.”

 

“Leave me alone,” Bruce grumbled.

 

Alfred disappeared. The sink flicked on, the pipes rumbled. Alfred returned with a pill bottle and a glass, setting them on the table beside Bruce’s cot. He offered Bruce the pill, first, and then he tipped the glass into Bruce’s mouth.

 

“I’m sure you are aware of this, having raised a deal of them yourself,” Alfred said, “but children have a way of giving back to us.”

 

Dick, and Dick’s laughter and his patience—Jason, and his questions and his heart—Tim’s smirk, and his determination—Cass and her sight, her bravery—Damian’s sharp and precious grin. Joys, all of them, gifts given to him in highest confidence.

 

Some urge possessed him, and Bruce asked, “Did I… do that. For you.”

 

Alfred blinked. “I… of course. You still are.”

 

“Al,” Bruce said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”  


His eyes were closing. There was a hand on his hair, stroking it gently. “That is for tomorrow, I should think,” Alfred said. “For now, rest.”

 

Tomorrow, he would wake up to ten jars of a hundred pennies each stacked by his bed, a post-it stuck to the top of one reading, _I recruited a few other officers into our war. Top this, Father._

 

But for now, he rested.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: pedophilia, CSA, PTSD, and Damian being a sassy little fucker. You go, Damian. And just to clarify, the CSA is not part of a case they're working, it happens to the main character.
> 
> So I was supposed to write stuff for Batfam week, and then I didn't, because I got sucked into watching God of War playthroughs, and this doesn't fit any of the prompts but you know what I'll consider it my contribution to the fun. Sure, I started writing this before I even knew we were _having_ a Batfam week. I'm just cool like that, I guess.
> 
> As usual, thank you for reading (or...... viewing, and hastily backing away) and if you have any comments I am reachable between the hours of 4 and 6am if you alternately play a kazoo and scream loudly into a storm drain


End file.
